


Like a Bad Joke

by saigne



Series: Overdone [1]
Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Angst, M/M, all his friends are alive and are assholes, also its less focused on jack and gabriel and more on jack dealing with, because sym and a few others will also be relevant later, everything, including the recall and gabe being alive and ana being alive too, or something, r76 has ruined my crops and killed my family, reinhardt cries in a later chapter, tagging characters as they appear and if they actually get more than ten lines, the rating probably will go up later
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-07-18
Updated: 2016-09-16
Packaged: 2018-07-25 07:37:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,678
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7524133
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/saigne/pseuds/saigne
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Alternatively titled a very slow burn Reaper redemption fic. Like really slow.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. There had to be a better way to find out

**Author's Note:**

> three revisions later im finally posting this just because i wanna write two other drabbles haha wow overwatch is terrible

It’s cold.

That’s the second thing Soldier 76 notes as he peers around the corner at an abandoned Overwatch facility.

The first is that the Talon agents he was tailing earlier that day, too close to the base he’s scouting, suspiciously disappeared. More suspicious as this base supposedly had sensitive information he had been looking for. A tip that he got from raid on a Talon facility two weeks ago, ironically.

He moves forward, so far not spotting any movement in the area around him and quickly continues, hunched down and ready to fire. There’s a light dusting of snow, continuing to fall and obscuring the barely there footprints he’s leaving. He gets to a door, only slightly surprised when he finds that the building has power still and he manages to use old codes to gain quick access to the facility. It’s dimly lit inside and silent, air less stale than he would have expected.. Soldier 76 steps in and closes the door behind him, scanning the immediate area for any trap. There aren’t any.

Easy.

Too easy.

Less than 200 feet in he stumbles across the first sign of trouble. The body he finds seems to be, after some investigation, a member of the local gang here. The fact that the facility is still running makes more sense than it did before, if a gang managed to get access to it somehow. At least he knows who to thank for the maintenance on the building.

He almost steps over it until he notices that something about the face seems off. He pauses, not letting go of the pulse rifle, to take a closer look at the corpse, the dim light barely helping as he has the visor he’s wearing zoom in and scan the corpse up close. The face of the man on the ground looks like a dried up husk, skin practically vacuum sealed to the bone and resembling a mummy rather than someone recently dead. 

The still wet blood pooled under the body is too fresh to belong to it, it’s state hinting at decades of decay rather than minutes. It doesn’t make sense and Soldier 76 takes a step back, recalling similar cases of corpses in reports he had stolen from various sources.

He straightens, moving forward on high alert, gun raised and ready. Only one person leaves bodies like this.

The Reaper.

A second after he has the thought the room feels like it’s dropped in temperature, an unnatural chill settling over the area and he curses silently. Speak of the devil.

He scans the room, trying to back up towards the wall as quietly as he can, continuously searching for any movement. He has his back to the wall finally, positioned near the doorway that leads deeper into the facility when he hears it. Metal boots colliding with metal floors, the noise loud and distinct. They’re unhurried, slow and sure and Soldier realizes he hasn’t been discovered yet.

He listens more, the footsteps slowly getting louder and more clear with each passing second. They’re heavy, slow, and so familiar his chest aches in a way long forgotten. The dog tags that don’t belong to him tucked under the thick leather jacket he wears feel like they burn, heavy and the normally comforting weight feeling like a burden, dragging him down. The more he hears the footsteps the less he can deny the possibly, though his head is screaming at him that it’s impossible. That he pulled the dog tags at a body burned beyond belief and unrecognizable. That shielded him from a crumbling building and blinding explosion. The dead don’t come back to life. Not from that.

Except now he’s doubting everything.

It’s not until the figure steps into the room, Reaper just saunters in, that Soldier finally accepts it. It’s the outfit that does it, the belts and boots and the make all calling back to an older one. He’s pretty sure that’s the same belt, actually. The only difference is the mask, white and gleaming even in the dim lighting, promising death. Even the hood is the same.

He thought he worked through this, accepted it and moved on. He was supposed to have buried his feelings, but like the man in front of him it seems they didn’t stay dead. Something aches deep in his chest, a tingling rush washing over him and he can feel something tearing. He forces a deep breath, shaky on battered and scarred lungs, and the rasping sound it makes gives him away.

Reaper’s head immediately snaps towards Soldier, shotguns seemingly pulled out of nowhere and aimed towards him.

It takes everything Soldier has to not stay frozen and make his finger pull the trigger, firing his helix rockets at Reaper’s feet. it ‘s slower than he normally should have been, shock making him sluggish. Years of bitterness have hardened him, formed a purpose, and now the rug was swept out from under him and he just fired helix rockets at Gabriel fucking Reyes.

The rockets only manage to stun Reaper for a moment, making him move back with a surprised grunt and a flurry of black smoke and Soldier uses the opportunity to run towards the doorway he just cleared. Soldier sprints, hearing footsteps behind him before there’s a sound like rustling curtains and he knows what’s coming. He’s seen the videos.

He keeps running, turning down one hall and then another, vague memory of the layout keeping him from reaching a dead end and he needs to shake Reaper and do it fast. He’s in no condition to fight.

The rustling noise slowly gets further and further away, and it lures Soldier into a false sense of security, dragging him into good and bad memories as he runs.

The explosion is the first thing to come to his mind, the desperate look on Gabriel’s face as he screamed at him. Desperation in his voice and Jack refusing to listen to whatever it was until shotguns were pointed at his chest. There was something wrong about the whole scene, Gabriel frantically trying to maneuver so Jack was separated from the rest, failing. The look of horror when the building was torn apart by the explosion. His body when-

Soldier shakes his head, ignoring how the scars hidden under his visor sting at the memory,

It was so obvious something was wrong, in hindsight. Promises were broken and communication was slowly dropped. The largest flag was when Jesse left, storming into Jack’s office and saying he was done. That he joined Overwatch to help payback for the crimes he’s done, not engage in worse ones. Jesse left with a nod, telling Jack to take a better look at his people.

And Jack ignored it, because Jesse McCree was a punk except by then he wasn’t just a punk. He ignored the problem like a bad smell, unwilling to look for the cause and hoping it went away. But it kept getting worse and the problem was rot from the inside and slowly, ever so slowly, the foundation crumbled and then Overwatch fell in its entirely, Jack at the top.

The betrayal makes Soldier’s chest tighten and he finally stops, sure that he’s at least put some distance between him and Reaper. The revelation makes the memories feel fresh, and Soldier can feel the cold armor he’s made for himself crack ever so slightly. Jack Morrison is supposed to be and is dead, the ghost wearing his skin shuddering at memories he doesn’t want anymore.

“Too slow, old man.” The voice comes from the left and Soldier barely has time to react before a shotgun goes off and pierces his stomach, the bullets splintering and getting mostly lodged in his side, some hitting a crate next to him. He hisses in response, suddenly caring so much about not saying a word, not letting Reaper hear his voice. Too much of a risk, even with a voice modulator. He can hear Gabriel under the mask and the rasp, now that he knows to look.

Soldier turns on him, firing and emptying half the round, not sure if he actually managed to hit Reaper in his hurry or not. The man turned to smoke again while he was turning.

The gunfire pushes Reaper back at least and he solidifies again, firing both shotguns while Soldier is dodging and he even holds the stupid guns exactly the same way. Nt like many people wielded dual shotguns either way. Soldier growls in response, ignoring the cracks in his heart growing larger and he needs to leave now. Before he makes a mistake.

The moment Reaper drops the shotguns is the moment Soldier strikes, firing his helix rockets at the ceiling right in front of Reaper. The proximity makes the already weak ceiling start to crumble, lack of maintenance weakening it. He’s already running, trying to get out of the building and away from painful memories and people.

It’s not until he’s out that Soldier realizes he forgot to raid the computers like he was going to. Not like he could have gone and done it had he remembered, if he was honest with himself. He puts a hand to his side where Reaper shot him, glove coming up wet with blood and it’s time to get to a safe house. Time to do a tactical retreat, because as much as he hated running away not many other choices remained.

It takes too long for Soldier to get there and he’s wheezing in pain when he finally does. The gun weighs too much for him right now, and he clumsily lets it drop to the ground, wincing at the clatter but not able to care much when he’s bleeding out. He unzips the jacket, wincing at the pull of fabric on the gunshot wounds and sets a biotic field, finally feeling safe enough to stop moving and let it do it’s work. He slowly makes his way over to a chair, still in the healing field, and slowly pulls off the mask and visor covering his face. He places it on the table next to him, squinting into the low lighting. 

He starts the process of pulling out the fragments, feeling for them carefully with fingers to used to this, wiping off all the extra blood on his now ruined pants, wiping the wound quickly as the flesh starts to knit together. By the time he’s finally done he’s shaking, covered in sweat and making his way over to an old fridge, hands lightly trailing along the wall as he goes. He grabs a too old beer from the fridge, grateful that the machine is still working as he pops the lid and drinks it all in one go. Not like he can get drunk from alcohol, anyways, the action done more for comfort of familiarity than anything else. His eyes sting and something warm hits his cheek, and he brings a hand up to wipe at his face and realizes it’s a tear. It’s strange. He hasn’t cried in years.

Soldier sighs, letting himself have just this one moment to relive the past and cling to memories, both good and bad before he pushes them down and tells himself he’s prepared to do what he has to do.

Three days later the old communicator he could never bring himself to throw away lights up, alerting him to the recall.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Soldier 76 runs into to someone he never thought he could call an ally, and turns out he gets a free ride across the ocean.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this is set sometime after symmetras comic and after recall but before 76 actually really gets anywhere. symmetra is a really cool character and she doesnt get enough love, plus i wanted to try and fit her into the new overwatch in a way that works and i hope im doing her justice cause not only have i not written her before but this entire thing was done in one sitting at an ungoly hour mainly because i couldnt get the into part out of my head
> 
> proofread this but its late so theres probably error oops

This is not what 76 expected when he raided a small office of the Vishkar Corporation at the edge of a city he just happened to be passing through.

 

He was expecting resistance, to be attacked, captured. To have to fight his way out.

 

The last thing he was expecting Satya Vaswani, codename Symmetra, to be waiting for him with two cups of tea and sitting on a chair she crafted of hard light.

 

So instead of doing what he’s gotten used to and having to shoot his way out, he gruffly returns the greeting she gave before taking a seat in the chair across from her. His visor already has notified him of the six turrets surrounding the door he just came in from, and while they’re not active, he gets the feeling they can be in a moments notice.

 

“This is a warmer reception than the ones I'm used to,” he starts, pulse rifle in his lap and finger tapping gently right above the trigger. 

 

Vaswani’s eyes glance down, irritation flitting across her features before she schools it into a neutral expression. He stops tapping. “Yes, well I am not like the people you normally associate with.”  _ I’m better. _

 

76 raises an eyebrow, facing her in stony silence until she deems enough time has passed on some invisible meter. 

 

“Would you like some tea?” She gestures to the two cups and he almost wants to laugh at how civil and clean this all is. 

 

“I’ll have to pass, unfortunately.” he’s not sure how much she expected him to accept it, the idea of drinking tea with Symmetra hilarious to him. Moreover, removing the visor in front of a stranger was absolutely not happening.

 

“So be it,” she says as she takes a drink of her tea.

 

“I have been tracking your movements,” she begins, picking up a file that was sitting next to the tea. 76 notes in surprise that the file is actual paper, something out of place in the hands of a hard light architect. Guess it was something she didn’t want anyone to see. “And I cannot help but notice that you seem to be in the pursuit of justice.” Pause. “Of  _ some _ sort.”

 

76 snorts, carefully setting his weapon down so it's propped up against his leg. Easily within in reach if he needs it, but a sign he’s willing to listen to what she has to say. More trust placed in her with this one action than anyone else in years. “I’m after answers.”

 

He can't tell her for what, the risk too high and it's not the first time someone has pieced together clues and hints and gotten it  _ right _ . He’s not so detached from everything he can’t access an article on the net. Or, multiple. Rumors of Jack Morrison being alive and active surfacing more than he would like.

 

Vaswani stares at him, trying to pick apart worn leather and grime and acts of vigilantism and she seems to find what she's looking for after a while. She purses her lips and they twitch up into a smile a second later, perfect and fake. 76 isn’t sure if he's actually awake anymore, but that train of thought vanishes as quickly as it appears. Too little fire,too little death, and too little regret to be a dream. 

 

“I also want to pursue justice.” Vaswani looks down to the file in her hand, the paper wrinkling in her grip until she manages to relax her grip, placing the papers back on the table and smoothing them out. “Or rather, I want to make the world a better place.”

 

She closes her eyes and 76 takes the moment to look her over, immaculate and prim and so out of touch with what's happening in the world. What her company is doing.  _ She’s like a child _ , he muses to himself,  _ thinking she’s altruistic _ .

 

“Recently i have been wondering if what I’m doing is actually the best way to pursue that.” 76’s eyes go wide under the visor and seems he has to reevaluate his opinion of her. Maybe she isn't as naive as he thought she was. Maybe so much time alone has made him bad at reading people.

 

She quietly pushes the papers over to him, waiting until he's holding them in his hand to remove hers. She reaches for her tea, drinking quietly as he looks over the text.

 

It takes him a moment, but he realizes they’re notes, evidence. As he goes through the list he sees more and more evidence of what Vishkar has been doing. Its nothing new to him, a few incidents having slipped under his radar, but the sabotage and lying and destruction? That he knows well about, especially how it's covered up in promises of order and organization. 

 

He glances up at her, mouth twisting down. She’s not in the dark then. She made this to convince herself. Based off the conversation, it already did the trick and now he's left wondering what part  _ he  _ has in her plans. “What exactly am I supposed to do with this?”

 

The smile that graces her features is different than the previous one. It’s wider, more natural, like she’s actually pleased. Vaswani sits up straighter, setting the tea back down on the table. She folds her hands over her knee, back straight. “I thought that would have been obvious, Soldier 76.” Too proud and smug for his taste. “It’s a job application.”

 

That throws 76 for a loop, and he barely holds back his jolt of surprise, instead placing the papers back next to the tea and straightening up himself. “You wanna repeat that?”

 

She sighs like it should be obvious, and 76 struggles to fight the annoyance bubbling up in his chest. “Like I told you, I have been following your movements and while they were aimless before,” she holds up her hand at the indignant noise he makes. “While they were aimless, now they seem to be pointing you in a certain direction.”

 

76 stiffens and he can’t have been that obvious about it. Sure, he was never that good at covert ops, but covering his tracks isn't that hard. Unless she's been monitoring the trail of destruction he’s been leaving when dealing with the trash he stumbles upon.

 

“That direction is Spain.” She sit back slightly, waiting for his reaction with the air of a someone who knows they're right.

 

She is. That pisses him off more. It’s been weeks since the recall came out, lighting up the old communicator he couldn't seem to get rid off. He was and is a sentimental old fool, the communicator burning a hole in his pocket until he decided that he couldn't let it happen again. Couldn’t let Overwathch fall again, no matter how small it is, and what has happened in the past. They were his friends once. Besides, no one had to know who he is.

 

He doesn't know if was Jack Morrison of Soldier 76 deciding it, but either way he couldn't let this small group of troublemakers make a mess of things. He still can't tell if it's guilt or responsibility driving him in the decision. Either way, stupidity is the fuel. 

 

And in the three weeks he's been making his way towards Gibraltar, Spain, one Satya Vaswani has been able to figure out exactly what he was doing. Not only that, but she predicted where he would strike and intercepted him. 

 

That makes him pause. He needs to be more careful. The next Vaswani might not be so gracious. Also, if Winston is going to insist on making this mess happen it's all he can do to bring someone who could possibly bring order to the situation. Still.. Shes annoying. 

 

“You want a medal?” 

 

The line is delivered with less malice than he intends, begrudging respect carried in the modulated growl, and it makes Vaswani smile again. The genuine one this time, thankfully.

 

“No, but I think I would like some rest before we make our way across the ocean.”

 

“We?”

 

“Yes, we,” she says, looking at her nails. “As you haven't turned me away, I assume you accept my application. And I have the means to get us both to Spain. And to the watchpoint there, where I am assuming you’re heading.”

 

Something still bothers him. “Aren't you supposed to hate Overwatch?”

 

That strikes a nerve, one he wasn’t expecting to be there. 

 

She turns to look down at the papers on the table. “Overwatch destroyed itself. It became too large and too focused on power and appearances and I see Vishkar going in the same direction.”

 

Her voice is quiet now, less of the regal tone he’s grown used to in his short time with her. “Disorder is the enemy of humanity, but,” she stops, seeming to try and chose her words carefully. “We cannot claim to provide order if it means killing the people who oppose us. It will only sow discord and further disorder.”

 

She still doesn't seem happy with how she phrased the words, but he gets the gist of it. Overwatch is bad, Vishkar is bad, she’s willing to give a small group of people a chance to try and make the world a better place.

 

76 could almost smile.

 

“I want to redeem myself.” That part is said so quietly he almost misses it, and he wonders if she even meant to say it outloud. Probably not.

 

76 stares at her again, noting the haunted look behind the mask of pride she's wearing and he looks at the list again, wondering what he could have missed. What she could have done. It goes past just being associated with Vishkar.

 

“Fine.” 

 

He almost missed the look of relief that passes over her features and he does actually smile this time. Its behind the visor, the smile private and only for him, and it turns out she might actually be human under her perfect exterior. “What’s your plan then.”

 

She smiles, the perfect smile this time, and he wonders if she's practicing or that's just her default expression when talking. “I still have access to Vishkar resources, as i have yet to  _ defect _ , and thus will use this to secure a teleporter to take us across the ocean. It will take approximately a day, but will leave us much closer to the destination than a day would take you on your own.”

 

“And I'm supposed to trust you?” 

 

“If this is not enough to persuade you, then all I can say is  _ please _ .” Turns out she is human.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> next is stuff with the new overwathc and things actually happen. probably. was not kidding about the slow burn my guys


End file.
